all i heard was chaos
by Bossy Mossy
Summary: "You can't leave us like this, Wally. It's not funny." It was Superboy's voice now. Blunt. Honest. Saying what they all were afraid to say. I'm sure he could hear me choking, my heart beat, the roar in my ears. Death, oneshot, slight ArtxWally


Inspired by - you guessed it - Mayday Parade's "Terrible Things," "One Man Drinking Games," and "I Swear, This Time I Mean It." Mayday Parade inspires my whole life.  
>Kind of dark, oneshot, drabble-y. Enjoy.<p>

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><p>"Wally! This isn't funny!"<p>

"Kid Flash! ...Flash? Buddy..?"

Searing, hot, the smell of sulfur. Wanting to cough but my lungs are too dry, my mouth too parched, and I end up nearly heaving.

Pain, all at once, in waves. It, alone, nearly caused me to roll over and wretch, if I could roll over. If I could move.

"Boy Blunder... What'd you do this time?"

My own voice surprised me. It was weak, spilling out between gritted teeth. I attempted to open my eyes - they felt as dry as my lips, my mouth - and I saw chaos. Reds and blacks, smoldering flames, clotting smoke, charred remains. Sirens began to ring, and I'm sure I could hear a chopper above my head, but tilting my head back was too much work. It was too heavy.

Everything was too heavy. Everything. My eyelids were too heavy, my head was too thick, my fingers too far away.

"Wally..." The reds and blacks, they were more solid now, and abruptly joined with greens and yellows, with browns, and slowly faces and shapes began to make out. I wanted to blink, but I was afraid my eyelids would plaster shut, and as it was they were watering from the smoke. I tried to move, I tried to, but like before it brought a wave of pain, of thickness, of exhaustion.

"What's... wrong with me?"

"You... you.." Megan's voice, wavering, weak, and suddenly I felt my head move. My vision swam for a moment, and then - her fingers raked through my hair, setting my neck on the curve on her thigh. I wasn't oblivious. It was her attempt to stabilize my neck until the paramedics could arrive. "You'll be fine, Wally, we promise."

I wasn't.

"The building, it was rigged. Even my computers couldn't find the hidden bugs," Robin murmured, and I watched him reach up, ripping his mask off, rubbing his eyes with the back of his soot-covered gloves. "_I_ should have gone in first. I'm the leader."

"I'm... not okay, am I, guys?" My voice, hoarse, and suddenly I coughed, and coughed, and it wracked my body and I couldn't stop. I tried, I did, tears pouring from my eyes, and when I attempted to take in a breath through my mouth I choked. My hands suddenly moved, my back arched, and I turned over onto my side in attempt to rid myself of what I was choking on.

The red that flooded from my mouth matched my skin, bloodied, blistered, glimmering white poking out. The sight made me wretch again. I barely heard Artemis over the sound of the roaring in my ears, over my vomit, over my fear. I shut my eyes, clamping my mouth shut and ignoring the heaves that shook my body, curling up on Megan's blood stained leg. It was comfort, it was fimiliar, while the others hesitated, Megan didn't. My fingers clutched her skirt and I fought past the blood and bile choking my throat, taking in choked breaths through my nose.

"You can't leave us like this, Wally. It's not funny." It was Superboy's voice now. Blunt. Honest. Saying what they all were afraid to say. I'm sure he could hear me choking, my heart beat, the roar in my ears, I'm sure it was all second hand to him. He was Superboy, after all.

I hid my nose in Megan's skirt and I wasn't sure why I was choking, if it was from a punctured lung or because I was crying, choking on the mucus and snot in my throat, making liquid cement in my throat. I couldn't breathe, I could gasp.

"I... I - I love you - you - all. Even you, B - Boy Blunder."

"Wally..."

"Megan, c - can you make me your... your... pancakes when I get home?" Meek, needing, soft. I'd never heard myself so scared.

"Wally West, you can have whatever you want when you get home," she said, her voice wobbly. Suddenly I moved, ignoring the pain, the waves of nausea, the blood beginning to creep up my throat, and I fell once - back onto the ground - but I wasn't about to stay.

I sat myself up, on my shoulders, on the palms of my hands - if you could call them that, and my eyes opened, if only briefly. I found Megan, and my lips found her cheek, it was chaste and quick and loving, and then I found that blonde, those green eyes. And I hesitated.

"Arty, you - you have a nice ass."

There was a choked fit of laughter around me, and suddenly I felt a pressure against my chest, a light weight, and hands were against my cheeks and lips -

Blistered, bloodied hands reached up before I could think, touching her cheeks, her hair, my eyes plastering shut, as if I was trying to memorize her face by feel. The feelings, they were marred, ruined by the blood and soot on my hands, but her hair was just as soft and she smelled just as sweet, even among the charred remains of everything around us. Even with my stifled choking and heaving, even with the blood and - and I was sure my face had to be messed up and bloody - even through all that, her lips were soft and innocent and precious, but they wheren't.

It was urgent, needy, sad. And all at once I kissed back, feeling tears beginning to well behind my eyelids and sliver between my shut lids. I opened them, tears pouring down my dirtied cheeks. I abruptly hugged her, my lips leaving hers, my lungs burning, wheezing, bringing air in but not getting any out. Arms around her, arms around Megan, and suddenly Robin and his exposed, weeping face was close to mine, and Kaldur was hugging me and Superboy -

Superboy was crying, in his own silent way, and when I glanced at him, he smiled, reaching over and cuffing the back of my head.

I don't think he understood, but he did, in a way.

"I love you guys," I wheezed, and wheezed, and then all I heard was chaotic silence, my own wheezing, coughing.

And then nothing.


End file.
